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exhilaration1. Me and B went to Philadelphia today
2. I met with an admissions counsellor at my old school
3. I wouldn't have such a problem getting what I want if I knew what I wanted
So, there are really two parts to this: what me and Bevan did in Philadelphia, and the bugs in my ear from hanging around my old school.
To re-cap where I stand as far as a degree... I said before I am eight credits away from a BS in Education. In fact, it is twelve, but it's not a matter of whether or not I actually want a BSE. I cannot finish that degree. The twelve credits are an internship - you know, a semester of student teaching... last thing you do before you get your education degree. I finished most of my core classes at community, and the rest I still finished ages ago, probably within my first two semesters away at school. I did a few very intense semesters and a few (still kinda intense...) part time semesters and then there were a few where I dropped a couple of the classes I was taking... all in all, I went to college, in some form, at some school, for... five years? That doesn't sound right... no wait, that is right. Because a good chunk of the time I spent traveling counted as an independent study, and the semesters I didn't take classes or only went part time were followed by summer sessions. So it is five years. Wait really, five years? I have a feeling I'm counting something wrong here. It will probably dawn on me in the middle of the night, lol. Right now I'm counting five years, though. I'm twenty five, I started community when I was sixteen, withdrew from school when I was... twenty-one. Okay then. Wow.
So I went from being an art history major to and English major to an international studies major... but eventually I settled into the education program. My last semester was, actually, quite stellar on paper, apparently, but I was an absolute wreck and I withdrew from school because I knew I'd get, I don't know, forcibly withdrawn if I did another semester. And... I can't do that internship because to work in a school in PA you have to have to have certain papers in order - and mine won't be. You have to pass a criminal background check and also some sort of child protection screening - and I won't pass the background check. In my head, I think I figured I could still finish my degree, just to have it, but in reality, I can't actually finish it.
So I am not close to a degree at all. I guess my choice would be art history, and I've got about three full-time semesters till I'd be finished. All those art history classes I took were 100-200 levels and don't count for upperclass work. And I quite honestly doubt I could pull off a full time semester... so this would be years of school, and whatthefuck do you do with a BA in art history?
You work at Starbucks.
So meeting with an admissions counsellor gave me this new piece of information: I can't finish my BSE even if I wanted to. But also: I still have scholarship money I can use. And also: there is a such thing as graduate school. Which hadn't even entered into my head. Cause the other obvious thing you do with a BA in art history, besides work some little hourly job, is go to grad school. And then you have quite a few career options.
Oh, and also: I still count as a Pennsylvania resident, even though I'm not. I wasn't even thinking about that, but it's great to know. So basically... I could go back to school, get (eventually) a master's degree, and end up doing something I really like with it. It would take a very long time, and I'm not sure how I'd feel about that... I mean, four years, at least, and that's assuming I'm taking more than two or three classes each semester, which I'm not too sure about. But there are all kinds of possibilities floating around in my head - I'm closer to getting a language degree than I am an art history degree, because of all the international studies stuff I did when I was like... nineteen and twenty... and the graduate program for art history includes studying German and Italian... which seemed odd at first but I think does make sense... there usually is some kind of foreign language requirement for a graduate degree I think, if it's an MA.
So... a degree in Italian or German might be a good choice... and would probably be more like two full-time semesters. Well, Italian, anyway... I don't speak German :P Although it might be worth my while to learn and just push my way though all those required undergraduate classes - they're all sequential classes and I'd be starting at the beginning, so... I don't know. I just didn't realize I actually had this many options. I also didn't realize that a quick, simple solution was not an option, so it kind of evens out...
So do I want to be a student until I'm... in my thirties???
I'm very, very smart. And I like to learn things. But I'm a fairly dysfunctional student. If I wasn't... I'd have graduated by now, obviously. I mean, I'd like to think, okay, well, I'm more together now, so all those issues I had before will not be a problem... but they will be. They're not issues for me now because I'm not in school right now. Lack of focus, extreme procrastination, all that shit - is just as true about me now as it was before.
I withdrew from school because I was going to class high, doing my classwork high, and passed out on my floor when I was supposed to be in class and in the ER because of overdosing when I was supposed to be studying. I pulled off that one semester but I knew I couldn't do it again and I withdrew so I didn't get kicked out without the option of ever returning. That was a good decision I think.
But all the original problems that have plagued me from the very beginning are still problems.
The guy I talked to completely did not follow what I was trying to describe, either. He told me about how I could get help writing papers and etc from student services... that is not what I need. My writing skills are fine. It's the part where I actually sit down and write the stuff that's the problem.
But I kind of feel like... it's either get some self control here and MAKE myself do this, or... I'm gonna have mind-numbingly boring and frustrating jobs for the rest of my life. Which is kind of a waste.
So, that's the part about me and school.
So, my boyfriend came with me. I didn't ask him to - he said he wanted to. He wanted to see the school and he wanted to hang around Philly with me. Which... is kinda cool, sure, that's great if he wants to come. We took the speedline from Camden cause there were a bunch of things we wanted to do in the city and I do and always will favor public transportation - so, no parking tickets :P And no, I haven't been to the DMV to renew my parking card. Which I'm not sure would solve my parking ticket curse anyway cause once I did get a ticket in a blue space... but I don't remember if that was actually my fault or not.
It was very, very strange hanging around my school. Still feels like "my" school, but... of course I don't know anyone there. So there are these crowds of kids milling around who look eerily familiar, in that they look like Temple students, but who are complete strangers... and also, they look so young! I didn't realize there was such a visual difference between ages once you hit your twenties... but then again, I guess some of them were only eighteen, being that the school year just started - they were probably freshmen or something. But they looked like babies!
We had lunch in Chinatown at this Malaysian restaurant that I always liked, and we walked around seeing how much Chinese we could read on signs (although, I have been told by Chinese-speaking people that the signs in Chinatown area often incorrect, or nonsensical, or something, which is interesting...) and then we caught a movie at the Ritz while it was still the matinee price, and then we went to this margarita place on South Street where I used to go with Matt all the time when he went to Drexel, because my boyfriend is very into his tequila. Me not so much, but that's fine cause I wasn't planning on drinking much of it anyway. It was more just cause it's a cool place.
And then we hung around on Penn's Landing for a while and talked about stuff, my stuff, my future, my education... all about me. I know B thinks I'm really smart - I think he thinks I'm a little stuck up, too, going by a few times I've really irritated him... like, this one class he took this summer he had to write a paper for every time the class met. Like, a little two page paper, pretty much to prove he was doing the bookwork or whatever. And the first one he did the teacher wouldn't grade and gave back to him and said he had to re-write it because it wasn't acceptable, and he was complaining about it and I looked at it and was like, "this is not a sentence. How could you possibly think this is a sentence? This is all completely messed up, how do you not know this stuff?" And he was just like, "okay well what is it supposed to be then?" But I was still stuck on how he could possibly have turned that in in the first place, I mean, even a third grader knows what a sentence is... right? And I was like, blah blah blah, I didn't even graduate from high school and I know that's not a sentence... you know, really going off about it (yes, very nice of me, right? Not even occurring to me that maybe, perhaps, I was making him feel like an idiot?) and he was finally like, "oh don't give me that, how many languages do you speak, how many books have you read, don't give me that didn't go to high school bs, you went to college, not everyone is like you, not everyone is automatically good at everything, not everyone is so smart they just look at something and understand it-" and he was really mad at me. Cause I totally did make him feel stupid. And he isn't. At all.
That last semester of school I did, that was the semester that I missed the entire first week of class because I just didn't go. There was nothing wrong with me other than I just did not get off my ass and off to class. Daniel used to drag me out of the house sometimes to get me out of those funks - once I was actually in class everything was fine, it's like sometimes I just need this kick in the ass or something - and how pathetic is that? How hard is it to just leave the house? And that semester he drove me to school every day (once he realized I wasn't going to class) even though it was perfectly walkable and I'm convinced that if he hadn't, I would have kept right on not going.
So no wonder he was so sick of me and so disgusted with me. I disgust myself sometimes. And I think I want to go back to school?
I've had this journal for several years now, and way back at the beginning it's full of me saying terrible things about myself, constantly. I understand that that isn't a healthy way to think, but those things are all true. I had just screwed up one thing after another thing after another thing until it all came crashing down around me - and I don't really have any reason to believe I'd be any different just because some time has passed. I can't even say "I know better now" because I knew better then, too.
Bevan says I should just start really slow, do things little by little - would it be so terrible if it took me a million years to finish? I don't have any deadlines hanging over my head. And it's true, I don't. It wouldn't be so terrible to be thirty-five and still a student. Especially compared to my other choices... thirty five and working at Wal-mart? Wawa? Still a hostess? Not working at all? Doing nothing but reading fanfiction all day?
I wasn't really expecting Bevan to come with me on my Philly excursion, but it's cool that he did. We had a really good time. It might even count as a date, being that I was wearing nice clothes and everything :P But I asked him why he wanted to come with me in the first place - if he hadn't come with me, I have a feeling I might have gone right from school up to East Oak Lane to wander on past the old house, and then who knows what might have come of that, but I didn't really want to go reminiscing like that with him along. Goes back, again, to sort of feeling like I'm telling stories, just making things up, like these crazy things I have to say couldn't possibly be true - at least it seems that way to me. But I got a very interesting answer from him.
He said he thought maybe if he didn't come along, I might decide to meet Hanna for another eight hour coffee date.
I know I didn't write about this, because I wasn't quite sure what to say and what to leave out... but I did meet Hanna for coffee one day, and it was an eight hour event. Hanna has since moved back to Philadelphia, as was her plan all along, and she has a part-time job doing something with textile design, very cool but not well-paying at all. And... yeah, I might have tried to fit in a visit with Hanna while I was in the city. I would just as likely have tried to visit with anyone else I know still living in Philly that I never get to see, but yeah, I might have thought to see Hanna.
Bevan told me to go ahead and have coffee with her. He told me I could do whatever I wanted and it was fine. And he totally shouldn't have even said that, because it was totally clear that it wasn't at all fine with him, and I should have known that.
But given, you know, the whole Connecticut thing... I was just like, WAT? (In my head) In fact, I was quite silent and he was like, "are you mad?"
Cause yeah, watch out for Lara, she gets mad.
And I was just like, no, I'm not mad, this was a fun day. I think it counts as a date.
And then I thought about it for a minute, and I was like, you know, if the whole Hanna thing is still bothering you, I mean... just say the word, and I'm yours. You know that, right?
And he squeezed my hand. AND THAT'S IT.
And I've been thinking about this all night, and I've decided that this obviously means that he fully intends to get back together with Jory when we come back from China. Because instead of me saying "no, I want you for myself!" I said something stupid about how it might not be a good idea to move that far away to live with someone he's never lived with before and hasn't even been in a relationship with in quite some time, in a place where he wouldn't know anyone and blah blah blah.
Yep. Go me. So that was my day.
And I guess what happens happens and that's that.
2. I met with an admissions counsellor at my old school
3. I wouldn't have such a problem getting what I want if I knew what I wanted
So, there are really two parts to this: what me and Bevan did in Philadelphia, and the bugs in my ear from hanging around my old school.
To re-cap where I stand as far as a degree... I said before I am eight credits away from a BS in Education. In fact, it is twelve, but it's not a matter of whether or not I actually want a BSE. I cannot finish that degree. The twelve credits are an internship - you know, a semester of student teaching... last thing you do before you get your education degree. I finished most of my core classes at community, and the rest I still finished ages ago, probably within my first two semesters away at school. I did a few very intense semesters and a few (still kinda intense...) part time semesters and then there were a few where I dropped a couple of the classes I was taking... all in all, I went to college, in some form, at some school, for... five years? That doesn't sound right... no wait, that is right. Because a good chunk of the time I spent traveling counted as an independent study, and the semesters I didn't take classes or only went part time were followed by summer sessions. So it is five years. Wait really, five years? I have a feeling I'm counting something wrong here. It will probably dawn on me in the middle of the night, lol. Right now I'm counting five years, though. I'm twenty five, I started community when I was sixteen, withdrew from school when I was... twenty-one. Okay then. Wow.
So I went from being an art history major to and English major to an international studies major... but eventually I settled into the education program. My last semester was, actually, quite stellar on paper, apparently, but I was an absolute wreck and I withdrew from school because I knew I'd get, I don't know, forcibly withdrawn if I did another semester. And... I can't do that internship because to work in a school in PA you have to have to have certain papers in order - and mine won't be. You have to pass a criminal background check and also some sort of child protection screening - and I won't pass the background check. In my head, I think I figured I could still finish my degree, just to have it, but in reality, I can't actually finish it.
So I am not close to a degree at all. I guess my choice would be art history, and I've got about three full-time semesters till I'd be finished. All those art history classes I took were 100-200 levels and don't count for upperclass work. And I quite honestly doubt I could pull off a full time semester... so this would be years of school, and whatthefuck do you do with a BA in art history?
You work at Starbucks.
So meeting with an admissions counsellor gave me this new piece of information: I can't finish my BSE even if I wanted to. But also: I still have scholarship money I can use. And also: there is a such thing as graduate school. Which hadn't even entered into my head. Cause the other obvious thing you do with a BA in art history, besides work some little hourly job, is go to grad school. And then you have quite a few career options.
Oh, and also: I still count as a Pennsylvania resident, even though I'm not. I wasn't even thinking about that, but it's great to know. So basically... I could go back to school, get (eventually) a master's degree, and end up doing something I really like with it. It would take a very long time, and I'm not sure how I'd feel about that... I mean, four years, at least, and that's assuming I'm taking more than two or three classes each semester, which I'm not too sure about. But there are all kinds of possibilities floating around in my head - I'm closer to getting a language degree than I am an art history degree, because of all the international studies stuff I did when I was like... nineteen and twenty... and the graduate program for art history includes studying German and Italian... which seemed odd at first but I think does make sense... there usually is some kind of foreign language requirement for a graduate degree I think, if it's an MA.
So... a degree in Italian or German might be a good choice... and would probably be more like two full-time semesters. Well, Italian, anyway... I don't speak German :P Although it might be worth my while to learn and just push my way though all those required undergraduate classes - they're all sequential classes and I'd be starting at the beginning, so... I don't know. I just didn't realize I actually had this many options. I also didn't realize that a quick, simple solution was not an option, so it kind of evens out...
So do I want to be a student until I'm... in my thirties???
I'm very, very smart. And I like to learn things. But I'm a fairly dysfunctional student. If I wasn't... I'd have graduated by now, obviously. I mean, I'd like to think, okay, well, I'm more together now, so all those issues I had before will not be a problem... but they will be. They're not issues for me now because I'm not in school right now. Lack of focus, extreme procrastination, all that shit - is just as true about me now as it was before.
I withdrew from school because I was going to class high, doing my classwork high, and passed out on my floor when I was supposed to be in class and in the ER because of overdosing when I was supposed to be studying. I pulled off that one semester but I knew I couldn't do it again and I withdrew so I didn't get kicked out without the option of ever returning. That was a good decision I think.
But all the original problems that have plagued me from the very beginning are still problems.
The guy I talked to completely did not follow what I was trying to describe, either. He told me about how I could get help writing papers and etc from student services... that is not what I need. My writing skills are fine. It's the part where I actually sit down and write the stuff that's the problem.
But I kind of feel like... it's either get some self control here and MAKE myself do this, or... I'm gonna have mind-numbingly boring and frustrating jobs for the rest of my life. Which is kind of a waste.
So, that's the part about me and school.
So, my boyfriend came with me. I didn't ask him to - he said he wanted to. He wanted to see the school and he wanted to hang around Philly with me. Which... is kinda cool, sure, that's great if he wants to come. We took the speedline from Camden cause there were a bunch of things we wanted to do in the city and I do and always will favor public transportation - so, no parking tickets :P And no, I haven't been to the DMV to renew my parking card. Which I'm not sure would solve my parking ticket curse anyway cause once I did get a ticket in a blue space... but I don't remember if that was actually my fault or not.
It was very, very strange hanging around my school. Still feels like "my" school, but... of course I don't know anyone there. So there are these crowds of kids milling around who look eerily familiar, in that they look like Temple students, but who are complete strangers... and also, they look so young! I didn't realize there was such a visual difference between ages once you hit your twenties... but then again, I guess some of them were only eighteen, being that the school year just started - they were probably freshmen or something. But they looked like babies!
We had lunch in Chinatown at this Malaysian restaurant that I always liked, and we walked around seeing how much Chinese we could read on signs (although, I have been told by Chinese-speaking people that the signs in Chinatown area often incorrect, or nonsensical, or something, which is interesting...) and then we caught a movie at the Ritz while it was still the matinee price, and then we went to this margarita place on South Street where I used to go with Matt all the time when he went to Drexel, because my boyfriend is very into his tequila. Me not so much, but that's fine cause I wasn't planning on drinking much of it anyway. It was more just cause it's a cool place.
And then we hung around on Penn's Landing for a while and talked about stuff, my stuff, my future, my education... all about me. I know B thinks I'm really smart - I think he thinks I'm a little stuck up, too, going by a few times I've really irritated him... like, this one class he took this summer he had to write a paper for every time the class met. Like, a little two page paper, pretty much to prove he was doing the bookwork or whatever. And the first one he did the teacher wouldn't grade and gave back to him and said he had to re-write it because it wasn't acceptable, and he was complaining about it and I looked at it and was like, "this is not a sentence. How could you possibly think this is a sentence? This is all completely messed up, how do you not know this stuff?" And he was just like, "okay well what is it supposed to be then?" But I was still stuck on how he could possibly have turned that in in the first place, I mean, even a third grader knows what a sentence is... right? And I was like, blah blah blah, I didn't even graduate from high school and I know that's not a sentence... you know, really going off about it (yes, very nice of me, right? Not even occurring to me that maybe, perhaps, I was making him feel like an idiot?) and he was finally like, "oh don't give me that, how many languages do you speak, how many books have you read, don't give me that didn't go to high school bs, you went to college, not everyone is like you, not everyone is automatically good at everything, not everyone is so smart they just look at something and understand it-" and he was really mad at me. Cause I totally did make him feel stupid. And he isn't. At all.
That last semester of school I did, that was the semester that I missed the entire first week of class because I just didn't go. There was nothing wrong with me other than I just did not get off my ass and off to class. Daniel used to drag me out of the house sometimes to get me out of those funks - once I was actually in class everything was fine, it's like sometimes I just need this kick in the ass or something - and how pathetic is that? How hard is it to just leave the house? And that semester he drove me to school every day (once he realized I wasn't going to class) even though it was perfectly walkable and I'm convinced that if he hadn't, I would have kept right on not going.
So no wonder he was so sick of me and so disgusted with me. I disgust myself sometimes. And I think I want to go back to school?
I've had this journal for several years now, and way back at the beginning it's full of me saying terrible things about myself, constantly. I understand that that isn't a healthy way to think, but those things are all true. I had just screwed up one thing after another thing after another thing until it all came crashing down around me - and I don't really have any reason to believe I'd be any different just because some time has passed. I can't even say "I know better now" because I knew better then, too.
Bevan says I should just start really slow, do things little by little - would it be so terrible if it took me a million years to finish? I don't have any deadlines hanging over my head. And it's true, I don't. It wouldn't be so terrible to be thirty-five and still a student. Especially compared to my other choices... thirty five and working at Wal-mart? Wawa? Still a hostess? Not working at all? Doing nothing but reading fanfiction all day?
I wasn't really expecting Bevan to come with me on my Philly excursion, but it's cool that he did. We had a really good time. It might even count as a date, being that I was wearing nice clothes and everything :P But I asked him why he wanted to come with me in the first place - if he hadn't come with me, I have a feeling I might have gone right from school up to East Oak Lane to wander on past the old house, and then who knows what might have come of that, but I didn't really want to go reminiscing like that with him along. Goes back, again, to sort of feeling like I'm telling stories, just making things up, like these crazy things I have to say couldn't possibly be true - at least it seems that way to me. But I got a very interesting answer from him.
He said he thought maybe if he didn't come along, I might decide to meet Hanna for another eight hour coffee date.
I know I didn't write about this, because I wasn't quite sure what to say and what to leave out... but I did meet Hanna for coffee one day, and it was an eight hour event. Hanna has since moved back to Philadelphia, as was her plan all along, and she has a part-time job doing something with textile design, very cool but not well-paying at all. And... yeah, I might have tried to fit in a visit with Hanna while I was in the city. I would just as likely have tried to visit with anyone else I know still living in Philly that I never get to see, but yeah, I might have thought to see Hanna.
Bevan told me to go ahead and have coffee with her. He told me I could do whatever I wanted and it was fine. And he totally shouldn't have even said that, because it was totally clear that it wasn't at all fine with him, and I should have known that.
But given, you know, the whole Connecticut thing... I was just like, WAT? (In my head) In fact, I was quite silent and he was like, "are you mad?"
Cause yeah, watch out for Lara, she gets mad.
And I was just like, no, I'm not mad, this was a fun day. I think it counts as a date.
And then I thought about it for a minute, and I was like, you know, if the whole Hanna thing is still bothering you, I mean... just say the word, and I'm yours. You know that, right?
And he squeezed my hand. AND THAT'S IT.
And I've been thinking about this all night, and I've decided that this obviously means that he fully intends to get back together with Jory when we come back from China. Because instead of me saying "no, I want you for myself!" I said something stupid about how it might not be a good idea to move that far away to live with someone he's never lived with before and hasn't even been in a relationship with in quite some time, in a place where he wouldn't know anyone and blah blah blah.
Yep. Go me. So that was my day.
And I guess what happens happens and that's that.
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no subject
Date: 2009-09-03 02:56 am (UTC)If you want to end up with a full professorship, curating in a museum, or writing professionally, PhD is really the way to go.
Keep in mind that you'd also need to write a thesis as part of your BA to get into most MA/MFA programs. (I don't know if you planned on writing a thesis, but that's something to really consider.)
I found all that stuff out the hard way, and I don't want you to be deceived.
IR and language degrees are much more marketable straight out of school.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-03 03:53 am (UTC)And, honestly, the fact that it takes years and years of education to work as little more than a glorified intern doesn't seem quite logical.
I originally chose art history because it's something I thought I'd never lose interest in, and I get a lot of joy thinking about and looking at art and I thought I'd be comfortable and happy working around it. I originally abandoned that idea in favor of the possibility of working directly after college as opposed to... continuing on through a PhD, which kind of freaked me out.
Why did you choose it?
The person I spoke to today was telling me about a joint graduate degree in art history and business management that was supposed to make you qualified to work in a museum (because the idea was that a graduate degree in art history alone didn't qualify you for much). I had never heard of something like that and it sounded intriguing.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-03 04:08 am (UTC)Me, too. But I also believe that I'm mildly intelligent and could eek one out.
Why did you choose it?
My ego. I wanted a PhD track job because I know I don't have the scientific skills needed to go the MD route to get my doctorate. My ladywife is also rather academically inclined so we will spur the other onward in the quest for knowledge and shiny new honorifics.
Well, that and I would really love to have the influence in a museum that a curator wields. I would also love to publish, but to manage that, I need to be a credible voice. (I have my sights set on Linda Nochlin and Laurie Schneider Adams.)
But mostly ego.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-03 04:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-03 02:40 pm (UTC)Between 5 and 21, academic interests change a bit.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-03 05:52 pm (UTC)As for procrastination, I know I sound like a broken record, but Flylady will help you to set up a schedule so things get done on time. Also, one of the biggest things that helped me was to take advantage of the free counseling at the college. I went twice a week, and it really helped clear my head and keep me on track.
And in my highly unscientific opinion, a language degree is really the way to go! :)
I know you can do this!
no subject
Date: 2009-09-03 06:35 pm (UTC)As for meds... well, I wasn't on them in college, so maybe it will make a difference, now that I think about it. I do get up and go to work, after all...
Flylady, I'm sorry, but I just cannot stomach her. I'm sure it's me, and not the system, because it seems to work so well for so many people, but ugh. Every time I look at it it just turns me off.
A language degree is a decent option, since it doesn't seem to require graduate school to get real work, I'm just not sure which direction to approach it from. I'm part-way through so many different tracks it's making it a little difficult to decide whether or not to pick up something I previously abandoned (cause I did so for good reason) or start something new (and thus be in school forever)